[This story contains spoilers for Task season one.]
In 2020, Tom Pelphrey made waves on Ozark season three, paving the way for his first Primetime Emmy nomination the following season. The development came as no surprise to fans of his mid-2010s pulpy action series, Banshee. The New Jersey native had likewise joined that low-key critical darling during its third season, and his magnetic turn as Kurt Bunker quickly became a fan favorite — earning him a promotion to series regular ahead of the fourth-and-final season.
Months before he was cast on Banshee, Pelphrey got sober in late 2013, a turning point he detailed in his recent appearance on THR’s Awards Chatter podcast. Shortly thereafter, once Bunker came his way, the opportunity to depict a man who’s drastically turning his life around became a fittingly cathartic parallel to Pelphrey’s own recovery journey.
His sheriff’s deputy character didn’t necessarily struggle with substance abuse; he was a reformed white supremacist desperately trying to atone for his past. But he couldn’t afford to remove the visible tattoos that marked his former affiliation, and Pelphrey intricately captured the inner conflict of confronting one’s greatest regret every time Bunker looked in the mirror.
Banshee wouldn’t be the only Pennsylvania-set series to arrive at a watershed moment in Pelphrey’s life. When he first read the early scripts for Brad Ingelsby’s Mare of Easttown follow-up, Task, he had just become a father to a little girl, and the struggling single father of Robbie Prendergast struck a chord that would reverberate throughout production.
Pelphrey welcomes those opportunities when his personal life and fictional lives align in ways he never could’ve imagined.
“Sometimes, where you are spiritually, and what you’re stepping into as a human being, also comes to you in the work. There are times when it’s sacred, and something transcendently beautiful happens,” Pelphrey tells The Hollywood Reporter. “The heart of the Robbie character is his love for his children, and I would not have been able to understand that on the level that I did had I not just become a dad.”
In addition to being left by his wife, Robbie is actively grieving the murder of his brother at the hands of the latter’s Delaware County-based motorcycle club, the Dark Hearts. As a result, he’s not only raising his two young kids on a sanitary engineer’s salary, but he’s also looking after his brother’s 21-year-old daughter, Maeve (Emilia Jones), who’s been thrust into a maternal role far too soon. With the help of his best friend Cliff, Robbie decides to take matters into his own hands by robbing the Dark Hearts’ drug operation in order to provide a better life for his children and to avenge his brother’s death.
Pelphrey believes Ingelsby is doing a great service by not shying away from the financial challenges of working-class people.
“Something Brad has succeeded in dramatizing is the reality of, How am I supposed to raise these kids without enough money? To make even close to enough money, I’ll never be home. How am I supposed to solve that problem?” Pelphrey asks rhetorically. “That’s the hard question Brad is asking, and it’s a question you don’t see dramatized a lot because it makes people uncomfortable. It’s a real question, and it’s a real problem.”
Banshee didn’t pop up overnight for Pelphrey. He’d been “grinding” since the early 2000s on soap operas, collecting two Daytime Emmy wins for his work on Guiding Light, while also taking on a string of indies, TV guest spots and plays. Thus, when he recently finished as the runner-up for Charles Xavier/Professor X in Jake Schreier’s upcoming X-Men reboot for Marvel Studios, he was able to better appreciate how far he’d come.
“To start from the bottom and then work my way up, I can see everything with a perspective that just leaves me feeling grateful,” Pelphrey reflects. “Now, when one door closes, another door immediately opens, and it’s really changed the way I feel about certain projects. So to have those [X-Men audition] experiences — and some of the other conversations and meetings I’ve had that haven’t been reported — it’s incredible.”
Below, during an FYC conversation with THR, Pelphrey also discusses the completion of Robbie’s tragic arc, Task becoming a Mare of Easttown crossover in its unexpected second season and the very practical reason why he’s relieved Professor X wasn’t in the cards for him.
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Team Banshee is doing really well right now. You received an Emmy nomination for Task, as did Jonathan Tropper for his Apple show with Hoon Lee, Your Friends & Neighbors. Trooper has also written a Star Wars movie and is now writing Ghost Rider. I just saw Chris Coy and Ulrich Thomsen do phenomenal work on Chris Mundy’s new show, Lanterns. Of course, Antony Starr just wrapped up his run on The Boys, and Greg Yaitanes directs a new show every five minutes. Have you kept tabs on that crew at all?
Yes, and I’m going to add to that. I literally just got back from Brooklyn where I’ve spent the last four months filming an action movie called Liminal for Apple …
I just spoke to your director Louis Leterrier. This is your first bad guy in a big-budget project, right?
Yes, we had so much fun. It has a lot of fighting, and our stunt team is the stunt team from Banshee. So I had a very happy reunion with [supervising stunt coordinator] Dave Macomber, [stunt coordinator] Mike Wilson and Justin Eaton, who doubled me 13 years ago. Justin and I sent pictures to Antony while he was on the set of his surfer show [Breakers]. I loved Banshee. I loved every second of it. So I love all those people, and it’s very cool to see everybody doing well. I’m not surprised, honestly. If Banshee was on HBO, we would’ve had seven seasons. I just felt like people couldn’t find it.
Pound for pound, between Banshee and Strike Back, Cinemax was doing some of the best action on any screen at the time. But you’re right, it was the little show that could.
It was the little show that could, which was both a blessing and a curse. With Cinemax being a little more hidden, we could probably do things that other people couldn’t do, but it was hard because we never got the full audience it could have had otherwise. Still, the people who did find the show love the show, and they’re amazing.
You turned your recurring fan-favorite role on Banshee season three into a series regular role on the final season. The decade-plus before Banshee, you paid your dues doing soap operas, guest spots, indies and plays. Thus, I think it’s a major feat that you were a contender for a comic book character that two of the most accomplished living actors have both played, Patrick Stewart and James McAvoy. I know the Professor X news is still relatively fresh, but are you able to look at it with those rose-colored glasses yet? [This chat took place on 8/12 before the X-Men cast was unveiled at D23 a couple days later.]
When it comes to opportunities like [Professor X], I am always of two minds. I am always a little torn in half. That’s a very long, serious commitment, and that makes me genuinely nervous because a lot of things can change in that time. So half of me thinks an experience like that could be cool and exciting, while the other half of me is a little worried about what could happen. But to be in the conversation for those kinds of roles, regardless of the specifics or how it plays out or why, it’s incredible.
To think about where I was ten years ago or even five years ago, it’s crazy the way this journey has unfolded. I don’t take any of it for granted. Like you said, I didn’t skip any steps to get here. I grinded for a long time, and my feet hit every rung on the ladder to get to where I am. I wouldn’t change any of it because I had to walk every single one of those steps to get here. I didn’t jump to the front of the line at any point or have one job that sent me into orbit. And thankfully so, honestly. To start from the bottom and then work my way up, I can see everything with a perspective that just leaves me feeling grateful.
Now, when one door closes, another door immediately opens, and it’s really changed the way I feel about certain projects. If something doesn’t work out and it isn’t perfect for everyone involved, great, because it’s probably perfect for someone else. That just means there’s something more perfect coming for me.
How did your younger self process relatively comparable moments?
When I was younger, I had much more of a zero-sum mentality. It has to be this, and I need to get this. So you’re either king of the universe for a while because you did get it, or you’re devastated because you didn’t get it. You feel like you’ve done something wrong if you didn’t get it, but it’s just not true. There are so many amazing opportunities, and to do one means you cannot do all the other ones. Every choice, in a way, is a sacrifice of all the other opportunities you’re not going to be able to do.
I tread lightly now. If something excites me — such as meeting a Louis Leterrier or a Jake Schreier [X-Men director], and I love them and enjoy talking with them — I’ll be like, Okay, let’s try this, but no guarantees ever. So that’s where I’m at now. It’s easy come, easy go.
There’s a common refrain to live in the moment, but I think there’s a benefit in taking inventory of how far you’ve come.
You learn a lot from looking back. You see how something that felt like a disappointment in the moment led you to a greater good. But we can only see those things in the rear view. If you’re paying attention and you’ve lived long enough, you start to realize, I should stop thinking I always understand what the best thing for me is. I’m going to surrender my master plan and how it needs to be executed. I’m just going to stay open to whatever comes next.
So to have those [X-Men audition] experiences — and some of the other conversations and meetings I’ve had that haven’t been reported — it’s incredible. It’s been a good time. As much as I may have some talent and as much as I know I work hard, I am fortunate to be here. A lot of things have to go right at the right time to get here, so it’s all good.
The other silver lining to being the runner-up for Professor X is that you won’t have to take a Bic razor to your scalp twice a day.
(Laughs.) I’ve also got a fat head. I have a watermelon. I was like, “If we’re even going to have this conversation, go into your AI image generator and look at me with a shaved head. That alone could be horrifying enough.” I’m not kidding. The only hat I can wear is a fitted size eight. It is empirically a big fat head, and I don’t know if we want to see it shaved.
I last spoke to you when you were in the middle of filming Task, and Robbie Prendergast is the latest compelling TV character of yours out of a half dozen in the last decade. Would you say he’s the most rewarding role of your career? Or do you value them all equally?
This might be a very strange or dark way to talk about my roles, but I think about them like I think about the dogs I used to have. They’re all so precious and so different to me that I don’t know how to tell you which one is greater. But Task was obviously so amazing.
It came out a year ago, and we stopped filming it two and a half years ago. But those guys are still like family to me. I talk to them all the time. We were all texting right before this Zoom just now. They’re on set shooting Task season two, and I’m still telling jokes in the group chat with everybody like I’m there.
Sometimes, where you are spiritually, and what you’re stepping into as a human being, also comes to you in the work. There are times when it’s sacred, and something transcendently beautiful happens. When I first got to read Task, I had just become a father, and so much of that show is about a father and his kids. The heart of the Robbie character is his love for his children, and I would not have been able to understand that on the level that I did had I not just become a dad.
I wasn’t planning that or controlling that. It just unfolded in a beautiful way. And I would say to Brian Davids Brad Ingelsby all the time when we were on set: “Brother, you could not make this happen again if you tried.” We both knew it.
Did the father-daughter dance break you on first read considering what you’d just experienced in your own life?
Yes, it speaks to the difference between who I am now and how I was as a younger actor. With a scene like that, I could see my younger self wanting to cook up all this emotion because it’s so poetic and heartbreaking.
But reading the scene now just totally gutted me. The last thing in the world Robbie wants is for his daughter to see that he knows it’s the last time they’re going to see each other, because that truth would terrify her and destroy her.
It was so deeply alive and personal that the actual acting of it became closer to reality than it would’ve when I was younger. There was so much alive in me that all I was focusing on was making [Kennedy Moyer’s Harper] laugh.
Are you the least bit surprised that Brad is now connecting Task season two with Mare of Easttown?
He’s the East Coast Taylor Sheridan. Look out, MCU. He writes in a world, and it’s so smart and so rich. I read every Stephen King book growing up, and many of his books live in the same plane, which is satisfying for fans. So it’ll be rewarding for Brad to also acknowledge what is true: both of these shows unfold in the same place at the same time. Delco [Delaware County] is not that large. It really is a wise decision, and it’ll bear some good fruit.
When you signed on to Task, it was still a limited series, and dying on a limited series is a very different proposition than dying on an ongoing series. But now that worlds are colliding and Task is continuing, has any FOMO set in yet?
As much as I miss and love those human beings, no. I felt the same way with Ozark. The way my Task character ended was perfect. I wouldn’t want that to change for anything. It would feel so cheap and contrived to change that. If you’re honoring the stakes and the danger of the world, how else could that go? So you don’t want to break the world for the sake of keeping a fucking character that you like because then you lose everything.
I previously discussed this take with Sam Keeley. The way I saw it, Jayson (Keeley) won the battle but Robbie won the war. Do you see the ending similarly?
Yeah, I definitely think Robbie wins the war in that sense. He definitely accomplished what he wanted to accomplish. He was hopeful he’d be able to pull off his plan that had a slim chance of succeeding, but I don’t think he ever thought he was coming home.
Then again, is there really a winner here? Jayson and Robbie fought over the future of their two motherless children, and now all four children are both motherless and fatherless. Robbie’s kids at least have Robbie’s niece, Maeve (Emilia Jones,) and a nest egg, but there’s a strong argument that no one actually won here.
That’s a deeper philosophical question that we could chew on for days, but I completely agree with you. Nobody is winning when they’re killing each other. In any fucking circumstance, no one is winning.
Something Brad has succeeded in dramatizing that you don’t see everywhere else is the reality of, How am I supposed to raise these kids without enough money? To make even close to enough money, I’ll never be home. How am I supposed to solve that problem? How should I solve that problem?
That’s the hard question Brad is asking, and it’s a question you don’t see dramatized a lot because it makes people uncomfortable. It’s a real question, and it’s a real problem. So that’s where Robbie wins, in a way.
I firmly believe the kids would be way better off having their dad. They’ll find the money somewhere else, and they’ll figure it out. But Robbie is not me, and Robbie believes that having Maeve and enough money to live on is going to give them a better life in the long run. I may not believe those things to be true, but Robbie did, and he got what he wanted.
Sam said he wasn’t expecting Jayson to kill Robbie in episode six, especially after Jayson already killed Robbie’s brother Billy and best friend Cliff (Raúl Castillo). Every other show would’ve given Robbie that hard-earned moment of vengeance. Were you also surprised by that swerve on first read?
I try to read every script as an audience member. I try not to read it while thinking about my character. But I thought it was beautiful, and I thought it was right. It was as realistic and unfair as everything else in this world is. That’s the reality, so I applaud Brad for doing something heartbreaking.
I was a little standoffish with Sam until after we were done filming. I was always polite and would say hi, but there was just a little bit of, I don’t like this guy, even though Sam is lovely. His character was literally responsible for so much of the pain in Robbie’s life.
Sam tells a story about the first time we met that I don’t quite remember. He said that I shook his hand and said, “You’re responsible for all of the pain in my life.” (Laughs.) And he said [in hindsight], “Bro, the way you said it just sent chills down my spine.” And I was like, “Yeah, that sounds like something I would do.”
Do you often do something method or immersive like that?
No, it’s not like I lose touch with reality and want to be called by my character’s name. But sometimes, there are certain energies that you can’t help. It just stays alive in you. The word method has been abused beyond recognition. I’ve read Stanislavski’s book where he talks about the method, and it’s not walking around in character all the time. But I understand what the word has come to mean.
Day one on Ozark, Laura Linney treated me like she had known me my entire life, and I felt like I was her brother at the end of the first day. She made it so much easier to do good work and deep work. You can relax and just play the scene because there’s trust and openness. I felt loved and supported the way a brother would. Similarly, with the kids on Task, I attended their acting classes with them, and I took them all bowling to help make this easy and fun.
So I don’t know if that’s method so much as it’s, What can I do to help myself without ever disrespecting someone else’s process and making life difficult for them and forcing them into what I want to do for me? It’s gentle and subtle, but I do it. A lot of people do, even if they’re not fully aware of it.
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Task season one is now streaming on HBO Max.
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